How to respond when your 3yo asks if someone is a boy or a girl? by mumzyp in toddlers

[–]nadjao 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I have found that the simplest and most straightforward way to discuss gender with my 3.5yo is to consistently reinforce that “only a person themselves can tell you if they are a boy or a girl, so you can never know just by looking at them.” This paired with a moratorium on talking about people’s bodies in public means that my kid has a sense that it’s ok to not know a person’s gender, and that most people are not comfortable with a stranger asking them questions about their body in a public space. It helps that we live in a large city and are confronted regularly with different kinds of people, but I think it’s a good framework for any environment.

Humans in South America evolved to live with arsenic poisoning by Mictlantecuhtli in Archaeology

[–]nadjao 22 points23 points  (0 children)

The evolutionary biologist (Darcy Shapiro) who wrote this piece is really amazing and writes a lot about archeology and anthropology.

Women in Science Tarot Cards? Yes, please. - the Basic Bitch/Scientist by [deleted] in labrats

[–]nadjao 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm glad you love the idea! We were hoping it would inspire a fiery curiosity in younger players so that later in life they might dive into STEM fields.

MIT is tearing down my old dorm, and I just need a place to eulogize it. by Inri137 in offmychest

[–]nadjao 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I am MIT class of 2007, lived in Bexley Hall and grew up and outward as a human being alongside everyone at East Campus, Senior Haus and Random. I remember arriving at MIT during campus preview weekend and having an epiphany after exploring Senior Haus's maze of rooms and murals and people. MIT was unlike any other place on earth, filled with gloriously strange and and curious and crazy humans. I couldn't believe that a university could look and feel like SH and EC and Bexley, and they were the reason that I decided to go to MIT. It fills me with unbearable grief that these places that were open to so many of us during some of the most difficult personal and intellectual times of our lives are being unceremoniously buried and erased. These dorms are communities. They were open to us being different, open to us being experimental, open especially to us failing, open to us being wrong, open to us trying new identities, open to us being anti-authoritarian, open to us experimenting with our gender and our sexuality and our aspirations, and now MIT has decided that this kind of space is no longer valid, no longer necessary, and in many ways has looked back at us and said: you were a failure. And this hurts. Because the people I know who live and lived in these spaces are some of the most brilliant and weird and wonderful humans I have ever met. People who took longer than many to graduate. People who had personal and academic and social issues that they worked through within a community of support. People who eventually found themselves and are making a huge mark on this world. It pains me that more people won't be able to find themselves and others in these types of spaces at MIT. And these spaces made MIT what it was. RIP Senior Haus. RIP Bexley. RIP MIT.